The Girls of Room 28

by Hannelore Brenner

  It was the end of April when Helga, Handa, and Tella arrived in Theresienstadt. Placed in the West Barracks, where the children of Bialystok had once been housed, they were handed something to eat, treated by doctors, and given beds. “When these poor devils were brought into the hospital ward and saw beds with white sheets, pillows, and blankets, they began to weep,” Erich Kessler noted in his diary. “They were undressed and washed. Their backs were covered with a layer of dirt as thick as your finger. Then they were given a soup that been specially prepared so as not to overtax their stomachs.”

  When Helga had regained her energy somewhat, she asked for a piece of paper and a pencil and wrote these lines to her father:

  Theresienstadt, April 1945

  My beloved Papa,

  I still can’t believe that I am here with you. I’m so incredibly happy that I can’t even express it. That I can be a normal human being again is a feeling you can’t imagine. The concentration camp is behind me now. And the only good thing about that is that I shall now treasure everything in my life. Papa, you can’t imagine what a feeling it is to be clean, with your own clean clothes on your body. Without a white cross on your back. To have your own bed, a blanket, a pillow, and to have peace and quiet and not have to be so terribly hungry. I always used to believe that a person needed to be rich, too. Now I see just how little a person actually needs. When I wake up in the morning and roll over and can stay in bed until nine o’clock, I am so grateful that I don’t have to get up at four-thirty, that no one is shouting at me, that I won’t be punished by having to stand for two hours of roll call the way I had to in Oederan. I don’t have to stand in wet snow anymore—three to four hours long. And we were grateful just to have a coat and a sweater, and shoes and socks, although the socks were much too short and shoes too small. In Auschwitz we didn’t even have that. All we had were wooden slippers that were falling apart, and filthy clothes that were too small for me. I want so much for this quarantine to be over soon. I’m so afraid we’ll come down with something here yet. Please, Papa, come to see me; we can talk over the fence if you have them send for me. Daddy, my dearest. I want to be with you so much! Try to get me out of here.

  Please bring me my tattered washcloth and soap. The man from Kyjov, Markus, or whatever his name is, is living in the Sokolovna. Please go to him and come with him to the fence. Our window is right across from a bench. There are too many people up front, and we wouldn’t have any privacy there, and they won’t let you in the back part of the building here. But because he lives here, they’ll let you get closer with him along. And bring some paper for me to write on and fight for me to be moved.

  Papa, please send word whether the coat I brought with me can be repaired. If only it were just a little shorter. And bring clothes from Frau Bader—maybe Frau Bader will have a blouse for me or some underwear. I don’t even have a knife here; I forgot to bring it and left it with you. And Papa, see to it that I get out of here. A hundred million kisses, and a big hug,

  Your one and only Helga

  The counselor Eva Weiss had been taken from Auschwitz to a forced labor camp at Christianstadt, where she worked for several months in a munitions factory. Life became a little easier for her. Although there was always a severe shortage of food, her life was no longer in danger. Things changed, however, at the end of January, when gunfire was first heard in the distance. On February 2, 1945, she was forced to join one of the death marches.

  Eva recalls:

  It was cold, the ground was covered with snow, and we dragged ourselves along. We weren’t the only people on the road. We saw all sorts of vehicles along the way, Germans and Poles who were traveling in the same direction we were. The Russians were evidently closing in at great speed, causing panic and confusion. It looked as if it might be possible to flee, but if escape was to be possible it had to be planned down to the smallest detail. Since I didn’t have the courage to run away all by myself, I wanted to talk a friend into joining me, someone who looked a little like me, not too Jewish—and that was Ruth Iltis.

  We had one whole day and night to plan our escape down to the last detail. We decided to pass ourselves off as sisters of German-Polish descent, just simple girls. We invented names—Annie and Gertrud Hinze. The next day, when we got the chance, we disappeared behind some firs in a little patch of woods, hoping no one would notice. Shots were fired in our direction, but they didn’t hit us. And after that, they didn’t follow us. And so we found ourselves in unknown terrain on a cold day in February.

  Eva and Ruth, now called Annie and Gertrud Hinze, first made their way to a farm, and from there they were sent to the “employment office” in the town of Weisswasser. People bought their story. They were given documents and an address where they could work as cleaning ladies. When they got to the place, they were in for a big shock.

  We stared at the sign over the door: HITLER YOUTH HOME. What should we do? It was getting darker and colder and we were getting hungrier and hungrier. We rang the bell. The door opened, and we were received by a motherly woman. She gave us a room, just for us two. We were also given a key and could lock the door. We were told we would be put to work cleaning up the kitchen the next day, doing the least pleasant tasks.

  The Youth Home was full of young boys in uniform, with flags, swastikas, and similar items everywhere. We pretended to be very simple girls, a little dumb and uneducated. The boys especially liked Ruth, now Annie, who was very pretty, but we kept our distance and kept to ourselves. There was always the great danger that they might find out who we really were. A few days later someone said we needed to have a medical checkup, and we were terribly afraid that our tattooed numbers would be discovered. What should we do? We tried cutting them out, but that wasn’t as easy as we thought, and our only choice was to burn them off. We had a stove with a fire. And while Adolf Hitler looked on—his picture was on the wall—we each laid a hot ember on our numbers. It crackled and burned and hurt, but we were doing it to save our lives. Afterward I went to the nurse and said that I had burned myself, and she gave me some salve and a bandage, which I then shared with Ruth. She couldn’t possibly show up with the same injury without arousing suspicion.

  A few weeks later, we were summoned to SS headquarters and assumed that our charade was all over. But we were well treated as cleaning ladies, and eventually sent to a village near the Czech border, where we remained until early May.

  Meanwhile, we had our roles down pat, and our relationship to the boys training for the front lines had become friendlier. We were even promoted to cooks, and to our great joy we now had enough to eat.

  As the Russians got closer the Germans started to panic and ran away from the Russians and toward the advancing Americans— ”from Ivan to the Amis,” as they said. We joined them in hopes of soon reaching the Czech border. When we saw a road sign with the word “Liberec,” we simply vanished in that direction. It was May 3, 1945. Ruth knew the name of an acquaintance of her father’s in Liberec, and we knocked on the door. We were welcomed and treated with genuine Czech hospitality. Then we started out for Prague.

  On our way there we experienced what for us was the only air raid of the entire war—a small German plane at low altitude swept wildly back and forth across the area, but kept coming back heading directly for us, and we had to take cover in a ditch. When the scare was over, we were covered in mud. We first had to clean up and so went to the nearest inn, where friendly people helped us. The people there started asking us questions, and we told them about our experiences. But when we told them about Auschwitz we could sense they didn’t believe us.

  The next day someone saw to it that we didn’t have to continue on foot, but could ride to Prague. We sat on the trunk of a car that was decorated with lots of flowers and Czech flags. Some people tossed more flowers to us. To this day I don’t know who organized the trip. I only know: The hour of liberation had come.

  In late April 1945, after a separation that had lasted half a year, Helga and he
r father were reunited at the very same wooden fence that had sealed the Theresienstadt ghetto off from the outside world for three and a half years and that was now supposed to keep the healthy from the sick. “Helga’s father was so happy,” Handa says, describing this reunion. “He wanted to give Helga the best that he had, and that was a little jar of butter. Helga hid it in her blouse, but we couldn’t resist. We knew that we shouldn’t eat the butter right away. But we each took a tea-spoonful and then another—without bread, about two ounces for each of us. And had terrible diarrhea as a result. We were lucky that it was no worse than that.”

  Their girlfriends were happy as well, and they also wanted to make sure the returnees had food, especially some of the good soup that Ela’s mother had kept in reserve for just this moment. But after learning how dangerous fat was, they managed to get some sugar for the time being. Handa and Helga were so emaciated and weak that their friends had to do something to coddle them.

  “Shortly after my return,” Handa recalls, “a woman suddenly came running toward me with a cry of joy. It was Jitka, my governess from Olbramovice. She had been deported to Theresienstadt toward the end of the war. She began to weep, and I asked her, ‘Why are you crying? I’m here, and I’m alive.’ ‘But you used to have such pudgy little hands,’ she replied, ‘and look at them. They’re just skin and bones.’ ”

  On April 29 word spread through the ghetto that the SS would have to leave the town within forty-eight hours. So now they would finally have to prepare for their departure, those gentlemen of the SS: Rahm, Haindl, Bergel, Möhs, and the rest of the pack. “Dunant is here, he’s in the Council of Elders, without any Germans,” Alice Ehrmann wrote on April 30. And one day later: “Capitulation—Churchill presenting it to the House of Commons… ? The excitement is getting unbearable. I just want to sob or die. Things just can’t get more intense; they have to come to a breaking point.”

  “On May 2 the black SS flags and the swastikas were raised at half-mast over the Little Fortress. And we all knew on the spot what that meant,” Erich Kessler noted. “We also received confirmation that Hitler had put an end to his cursed life.”11

  On May 3, 1945, the International Red Cross, under the direction of Paul Dunant, took Theresienstadt and the Little Fortress under its protection. “The SS finally has to make its exit,” wrote Erich Kessler. “The news is that Goebbels has been found dead. Rumor has it that peace is already here. Those who come from Prague are to return home within four days.”12

  These were days for holding your breath. The end was in sight and yet all were surrounded by death. “We were told to be careful, to keep the windows closed, and not show ourselves at the windows,” says Handa, who was quartered with Tella in what had previously been Room 1 in L417. “There were still SS men and snipers who were firing at random.”

  Handa could watch the exciting events on Market Square from her room, and she had a good view of the main road through town. Even so, it was difficult to understand what was going on there. There were throngs of people everywhere—prisoners, German soldiers, Czech policemen. A great deal of traffic was moving in all directions—trucks packed full of hundreds of black boxes, people from Prague and other towns coming to fetch their relatives, the vehicles of the Wehrmacht driving through town on the way to Prague.

  “On May 4 I was awakened very early by a strange noise,” Handa recalls very clearly. “It was as if a huge swarm of bees was flying this way—buzzzz. I didn’t know what it was. I risked looking out the window. I didn’t see anything. But the noise got louder and louder. Finally I saw Russian tanks with a lot of people riding on them. They were former Theresienstadt prisoners on their way back to the ghetto, who had run into the Russians on the road. They were shouting to their friends and weeping at the same time.”

  The Russian troops drove on toward Prague as well. And there were still scattered Wehrmacht units moving through Theresienstadt, with shots fired now and then.

  “On May 5, 1945, which was my sister’s birthday,” Ela says, describing the day, “there was a great shout as the Czech police entered town under the old Czech flag. They drove through the streets. There was jubilation everywhere. We really celebrated.”

  Bearing the flag of Czechoslovakia and singing a potpourri of national anthems, people stormed the commandant’s headquarters, and Rahm and Haindl fled. The Czech police took command of the town.

  But in the barracks there was still hunger and death, and in Prague there was still fighting going on. Endless columns of tanks continued to roll through Theresienstadt, the sounds of rifles and machine guns were still being heard, transports of prisoners were still arriving, and SS men were still trying to escape.

  On May 6 Otto Pollak wrote to his daughter, who was still under quarantine:

  My one and only child,

  I received the sweet lines you wrote from the West Barracks and was saddened at first to know that you will be leaving me again. I didn’t sleep much last night either, because there was so much to think about and I didn’t have my little sparrow beside me.

  After much consideration, I’ve come to the decision to let you depart along with your friends who shared your fate in Oederan. I do this because I assume your transport will be under the protection of the Red Cross and that Switzerland will be the place chosen for your recuperation. I have nothing so beautiful to offer you for the next few years, my sweet darling, and I hope that you will enjoy the love and care of the Swiss in full measure. Do all you can to get out of quarantine, because I have so many things I want to talk over with you and want us to be able to say goodbye before you leave.

  If you can’t come to me, Frau Sander and I will pack your suitcase for you. And I have a little handbag with toilet articles and some food for the trip to give you as well. I brought your diary out into the light of day today. It is in good shape. So for now, my little child, I send you lots and lots of kisses and remain,

  Your Daddy

  On the evening of May 7, almost the entire population of Theresienstadt gathered in the main square in order to finally hear the news with their own ears: Germany had surrendered unconditionally. The surrender documents had been signed the night before in Reims, France, by Colonel-General Alfred Jodl. This time there was no jubilation. The war was over, but there could not be any real talk of peace as yet. The very next day, the population was warned to exercise the utmost caution.

  On May 8 the thunder of cannons could still be heard almost the entire day. But then the tension faded. Standing at an attic window in the Dresden Barracks, Vera Nath looked down at the streets below: “It was already late evening,” she recalls. “Around nine o’clock. Suddenly we saw a woman with a red flag, and we ran downstairs. The barricades to the ghetto had been opened. The Red Army was entering. They were all just children, fifteen-, sixteen-, and seventeen-year-old boys. We cheered them; what else could we do? We stood outside for hours and watched. Everyone sang the ‘Internationale’—in German, Czech, Polish, Hungarian, all blended together.”

  Theresienstadt, May 8, 1945

  ! ! GENERAL WARNING ! !

  In view of the hostilities occurring in close proximity to Theresienstadt, the following directives are to take effect immediately:

  1) The streets are to be used only for official business. And in no case are the ramparts and walls or roads leading around town to be used, beginning at the Litoměřice Gate, Bodenbach Barracks, Dresden Barracks as far as the Sluice Mill, plus all roads leading to Bauschowitz-Litoměřice and all roads leading around the Fortress; moreover, everyone should avoid the vicinity of these roads.

  2) It is forbidden to loiter near windows and doors or in the courtyards of houses and buildings! At the sound of gunfire, people should take cover against the wall nearest to the windows to avoid being hit by gunfire penetrating windows or doors.

  3) Until further notice, children are to stay indoors!

  4) If artillery fire should be heard, everyone should immediately take cover in the cellars of
residences and larger buildings. Supervisors and directors in all buildings are to make sure that the entrances to cellars are kept open for immediate entry at all times. In such event, at least two men are to stand guard at the cellar entrance.

  5) No open fires whatever are permitted until further notice!

  6) If gunfire is heard, all streets and public areas are to be evacuated at once and cover taken in houses or beside walls.

  May 8, 1945, General Warning

  EPILOGUE

  EVA WEISS and her friend Ruth Iltis were among the first survivors of German concentration camps to experience the end of the war in Prague. There they anxiously awaited their relatives and friends. “But only a few returned,” recalls Eva. “And all of them had a sad tale to tell. Everyone knew of many others who would never return. It was a time of highs and of very deep lows.”

  Eva Weiss Gross

  Since no one from her immediate family in Brno was still alive, Eva remained in Prague. There she met her future husband, a Czech who had emigrated to England and had marched into Prague with the British army’s Czech Brigade. When he returned to London a year later, Eva could not accompany him because she had no valid papers. Not until three years later did she manage to acquire a joint passport, which was issued to an aliyah group and allowed her to travel to Israel, where the couple was reunited. They were married in Kibbutz Givat Chaim Ichud. After a few months they moved to England, where she began a new life.